Tokens of Life (give me)
by neverland300690
Summary: Jon thought of his mother's family often, he never heard a whisper from them. Until the day the northern wind howled through the ancestral halls of the dragon Queens, bringing with it snow and wolves' cries at its tail. Five hundred different deities in that hall, and not a whisper could be heard when she walked in. She looked at him, eyes like ice... and everything changed
1. bigger than god

**i**. bigger than god

 _"_ _ _I think you learn by unbeing  
Like first you die and then go oh"__

 _ _MELISSA BRODER_ _, from__ _ _"DAZE BONES"__

x

He dreamt of her sometimes.

He was not supposed to, that he'd always known. Jon was no Daenerys: he did not have the sight. The only thing he saw that did not rightfully belong in his dreams was _her_. He'd never spoken of it with anyone, because he did not know how to ask, or even what exactly he'd be asking after.

He didn't know why he was so sure it was always the same woman either. In those dreams, she had no face, no distinctive features. Sometimes he wasn't even sure if it was a _woman_ he dreamt of, or it was flames he was entwined with. They felt cool and smooth against his skin, between his fingers, but that was not unusual: he was a dragon. All his life he'd been told fire was his.

Jon didn't need any assurance but what his feelings gave him though. It _was_ a woman he dreamt of and always the same one. He had no doubt of it. The impression she left on him when he woke was ephemeral as smoke between his fingers, and as real as touch upon his skin at the same time. And though he did not know her, he knew she was powerful and foreign… and that she waited.

She only ever said his name. Nothing more. He could not remember the sound of her voice once he woke. It might as well have been the wind.

Jon kept walking the meadow, his power weaving, threading around his fingers and bare toes. The land breathed green in his passing, and leaves turned against the sun, embracing its gift. He looked up, to the high rustic walls of his grandmother's castle.

Nobody in his family shared his gift. The gift of life and blooming. The ability to make things grow.

Daenerys was mistress of fire – it answered to her as it did for none other, not even the Queen, her mother. The truest dragon to be born to the Targaryens in eons. Some said since Visenya and Rhaenys had concurred Weseros with their brother. Aegon was master of arms and Rhaenys with her golden bow, had hailed herself protector of maidens and already worshiped as mistress of the hunt. But though he had come of age a long time ago, Jon did not feel like he had grown into his true self. He trained in weapons and letters and was well versed in both, blessed the lands of his grandmother the queen with fruitful harvests too, and for that he was beloved. But he knew, in his heart, this was not all there was. He had yet to find the true nature of his gift.

The first time Jon had made a weirwood tree spring from the earth and grow, his father had gone pale. Rheagar had told him after, with a smile that was more sadness than joy, that that was a symbol of the northern gods of old. It was his mother's power, Rheagar said, showing itself to Jon through secret ways. He was blood of the wolf, as well as a dragon.

Nobody knew what that meant, not even Jon. He only knew it made him different, in a way that was unfamiliar to everyone around him. He was the only one that nature answered to, the only one that sometimes listened to the wind and heard whispers. ( _they called to him. He never knew how to answer, but his heart ached for that language_ )

Jon knew this carried weight – he felt it. But it had never caused him shame. People were careful around him, but half the time this was because he was nephew to the Queen. Rhaella was a fair ruler, but she'd never being inclined to forgiveness when it came to offences done to her family. Men and women did not always understand Jon either, but beyond the squabbling of any court, nobody was openly unkind to him.

But being unlike anyone else meant that his heart too had known the twinge of solitude.

Jon looked down, to where his finger were imbedded in the soft summer earth. Vines were growing out of the earth even as he looked, the bush blooming into roses: small and blue as frost. His mother's flower…

Jon did not know much about his mother but her name and where she came from. Many times he had wished to travel north, and just as many times he had been discouraged from it. ' _When you're older_ ' his father always said. ' _One day, I will take you there_ '. Jon knew though that it was not a question of age, but of a place. His father seemed to be of the idea that the North would be perilous, and that the northerners a danger to his son. He had never said as much, but Jon could sense it. There was a deep disquiet there, behind his father's reluctance to let his son go. Aegon and Rhaenys could understand it had never been subject to such restrictions. But then again, they had never wished to go farther north than the Riverlands.

Jon loved his father and respected him. But that did not mean that his over-protectiveness did not grate and make their relationship prickly sometimes. Rheagar didn't allow Jon to wander alone, he was always guarded and always told to be careful. All his life, his father had warmed him of an unseen danger, though Jon had never seemed to understand what it was, and Rheagar had always refused to explain it to him.

But despite his father's unspoken wishes, Jon was not the only one not to have explored the lands of Winter. He did seem to be the only one with the desire to do s, however

The north was not forbidden, not truly. As the South was not in fact forbidden to the northerners. There was no law against it and no punishment, should one chose to do cross the borders. But Jon had yet to meet the Aether-born man or woman that did not dread the unknown lands of above the Neck and the gods that ruled them. ( _His family_ …) It was an unspoken truth of some resonance that southern and northern beings did not mix anymore. Nobody said it out loud, but that had never kept Jon from understanding things. As he had understood without being outright told that there were those who blamed his mother for the rebellion, eaons past. That her travelling south and to his father had somehow triggered events to an inevitable, and almost utterly ruinous end. That saw his existence as proof of what was one of the most disastrous wars that had ever been fought.

Jon knew better than to believe that was truth. His grandmother herself had explained him when he had been young in the world, and words could still hurt him.

The rebellion had had nothing to do with his mother or his father. It had been his grandfather's madness to trigger it. His cruelty and his offences, that had almost torn the realm apart. At the end, Aerys had even tried to crown himself as king, despite the fact that their realm had never been ruled by anyone but Queens.

Aerys and all those that supported him had been defeated, at great cost and great risk, and locked away in the bowls of creation, below the lands of Ever Winter ( _one more reason why the north seemed so strange to the southern gods_ ). None seemed to miss him. But he had not exiled before the Queen had taken from him what she had needed, namely a daughter to pass her crown to.

Time had flow by, peace had settled. Danny was learning how to rule by her mother's side. Aegon trained in the arts of war under guidance of the Sword of the Morning and soon, Rhaenys too would be leaving them for Dorne, to join her cousin Arianne and the court of the sun. Dorne was the only one of the kingdoms that passed the rule to the firstborn, and not the firstborn daughter, but all knew that Arianne was very fond of all her cousins – even Jon. Many times she had invited him to Dorne, though Jon had only gone half as often.

But despite the strange limits and their father's worry, Jon and Aegon had had their fair share of escapades. They had visited the Reach and the Stormlands, and even the far western corners of the Rock. Jon had even been to the remote location of his birth. A forgotten corner of the world that his father had named the Tower of Joy. Rhaenys was the one that planned their most daring mischief, because their sister was as bold as the sun of her mother's country. Often she had gotten them into trouble - and just as often she had dragged them out of it.

Jon loved his family dearly. And though not all were as pleasant to him as he wished they were ( _many whispered that Viserys had inherited from his father more than just his eyes_ ), the south was his home and Jon had no particular wish to leave it. But he wondered sometimes…

He wondered if this was all he was ever meant to be. If there was not something more for him, beyond this place, and the people he knew and held so dear. A purpose for him to chase too, as his brother, sister and cousins had done. A place that would truly take hold of him and make him feel the full rightness of belonging.

Every time he found himself thinking thus, Jon felt the bite of guilt. He had had a good life, and a loving family. He was grateful for it. And yet…

His name came back to him in whispers.

He was Jon _Snow_. His mother had not claimed him and his father could not. And sometimes he could not help but feel that otherness, deep inside him, like an otherworldly hunger that nothing could sate.

Why had his mother's people never acknowledged him? Why, contrary to everlasting tradition, had he been raised in his father's home? He was not unhappy but he _was_ curious. ( _and sometimes… sometimes he got a bitter taste in his mouth at thinking of all the different shades rejection could take, and how sometimes he did not know what was worse: being forgotten or being unwanted_ ). Did his mother's people even care whether he lived or died? If he was happy, or accepted or scorned? Did they never think of him at all?

Jon thought of them often. But he never heard a whisper from them. Not once.

Until the day the northern wind howled through the ancestral halls of the dragon Queens, bringing with it snow and wolves' cries at its tail. Five hundred different deities in that hall, and nobody whispered when _she_ walked in, tall and forbidding, the skirts of her dress swirling about her like mist and snow glittering unmelted in her flame hair. She looked at him… and everything changed.


	2. already aching

_we arise_  
 _from dust already aching._

 _[...] how it goes: blood_  
 _knows the dark of our bodies_  
 _intimately & yet somehow it thrives._

 _- **Prhistoric** , Keaton St. James_

Jon had not heard such silence in the throne room since the trials of almost a century past, when the Queen's Hand had died and poisoning had been the suspicion.

He did not know why his heart was beating so hard against his ribs. He could do nothing to stop it though.

The northern lady walked straight for the throne, as if nobody else was worth her eye. The air she moved with her ever step turned misty, as if the cold of the very tops of the mountains shook from the folds of her skirts. They all parted for her wordlessly, as easily as tall grass to the wind. Whether it was because the look on her face demanded it, or the giant wolves that stalked her sides, Jon did not know. It did not matter.

Even Cersei Lannister made way, rushing to her golden twin's side and whispering in his ear. Matching little smirks twisted their lips. Jon frowned. He'd never liked the Light of the West, though her beauty was incomparable, and never liked her twin brother either, through many called him Love Bringer. Rhaenys called him trouble-maker, and Jon tended to agree with her.

She stopped when she deemed herself close enough to the steps of the Iron Throne. Her giant grey wolves stopped some feet behind her, sitting on their haunches like ghoulish guards, their golden eyes shining with the intelligence far beyond that of an animal.

Jon felt something deep within him pull him forward. A whisper in a tongue he did not know, but would understand if he just closed his eyes andlistened. He took a single step forward and one of the wolves' eyes found his. He stood transfixed... but unafraid.

They were monstrous. And they were beautiful.

The lady's curtsy for the dragon queen of the immortals was deep, but her eyes held Rhaella's, and her head did not bend. It was not a breach of protocol, or arrogance. It was history.

The wolves did not show neither necks to anyone. And even less to Dragons.

Jon felt his heartbeat all the way to the tips of his fingers. He'd suspected (hoped) the moment he saw her, but now he knew! She was not just anyone. She was a Stark.

It did not matter then, which Stark she was, or that she looked nothing like Jon had imagined his northern family to look. She was of the north. And the first Stark to set foot in Queen's Landing since Rickard and Brandon Stark had been killed there. By dragons.

Whoever she was, Jon thought, she must have nerve.

"The North salutes you, Dragon Queen."

Jon did not know what he had imagined her to sound like. Her voice was sweet and firm enough to fill every corner of the hall.

"And Queen's Landing welcomes you, Lady Stark." The Queen said, sitting perhaps just a bit straighter on the throne. (or perhaps that was only Jon's impression.)

"I have come to fulfil my end of the promise made..."

"You will not!"

Jon started when his father's voice boomed through the hall. He'd been so focused on lady Stark that he had hardly noticed anything else. But now he saw his father, tall and proud, and angrier than Jon had ever seen him, as he stepped in front of the crows and faced the northern lady with flaming eyes.

"I am not trying to robb you, Dragon prince." Lady stark said calmly.

From his left, Jon felt someone tug his sleeve. He turned and saw Rhaenys, slight and quiet, dark eyes wide.

'We must leave now, Jon.' She whispered in his mind. 'Father said so.'

Jon shook his head. He could not. He knew he should not.

His sisters hold on his wrist got stronger and he felt the pull of her power, urging him to disappear. Fleetingly, he caught her thoughts. Thoughts of sun and white shores, hidden places.

Dorne.

'No.'

She pulled at him, discreetly enough that she was unnoticed. Insistently enough that he had to resist her by exercising his own will against hers.

'Leave before it's too late.'

'I will not.'

'Jon!'

Too late came too early.

"You will not have my son!" Rheagar said, steady now. Resolved.

Rhaenys dissolved from his side, as if she'd never been there. Perhaps she had not. Perhaps she had only been there in his mind. It did not matter.

For a fleeting moment, Jon could feel every eye in the room turn to him. (All but hers. Her eyes were fixed on his father.) His blood was rushing so loud in his ears, yet Jon could hear every word as if it rung like a bell in his head.

Lady Stark lifted her chin a fraction. Her face gave no expression, but the air around them turned colder. She was not just of the north, Jon thought then, as he saw his breath turn into a small cloud in front of his face.

She was the North.

"Do not think, Rheagar Targaryen, that because my parents are both with our mother the Creator, you are released of your oaths, or that I will not hold you to them. The north remembers."

Her voice was voice harder. Deeper.

"You swore a vow, Dragon prince. To my parents, on the banks of the Trident running red with the blood they spilled for you, you swore. Upon the charred bones of my grandfather, my uncles' death-still body and my aunt's not yet cold one, you made a promise. We kept our part: your son grew in your home, as you wished. Now I have come to reclaim my own."

Jon's ears were ringing. He felt as if he was being pulled apart from his very body and being shoved into another. A body of a man he did not know, with a history none had ever bother telling him.

Her own?

"I never had a choice then. I do have a choice now." Rheagar said, lips pulling back from his teeth as if the very words reminded him of a too-long suppressed hate.

Lady Stark turned her eyes to the queen. Her silence was perhaps louder than ay words could have been.

"It is wise that we agree on this, my son." Rhaella finally said. His father paled.

"There can be no agreement." He said, hands balled into tight fists. Jon half expected his father's battle armour to appear over his fine clothes.

"I will not abandon my son to the frozen depths of your hellish realm, Unseen One." His father spit out that name as if it was an insult. "You, who would not even known him if you laid eyes on him."

She looked at him so suddenly that Jon startled. Had he been capable of movement, he would have been pushed back by the weight of her gaze slamming into him. Her eyes held the bright blue of a clear sky, but they might have been tinted glass for how hard they seemed. A breath escaped him, and it fogged in front of his face, the cold crawling up his arms and leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

The parody of a touch.

It climbed Jon's spine like a threat.

She inclined her head minutely. The only recognition he had gotten thought-out the whole talk, that was supposed to be about his own fate.

And then she turned her eyes to the Queen.

"Am I being denied, your grace?" Lady Stark asked, as if none had raised her voice at her and all was going as she'd planned.

His father did not agree. "I have spoken my final words on the matter."

"You gave your word once and now you are breaking it." The Queen said, eyes harsh on her son. "Your word seems to mean little, beloved son of mine."

His father's hands glowed red, the beginning of a flame sparking between his tightly clenched fists, and Jon wondered, is this how wars begin? Before the Queensguard could move to interfere, or the Queen could raise her hand to stop them, the wolf by Lady Stark's feet, the one of darker fur and eyes of a brighter gold, growled deep in its chest. Lady Stark raised a delicate-looking hand, and the wolf settled. It hadn't even moved, but it's grown had sounded like a small thunder.

Even low and rolling as it had been though, it distracted the whole court into tittering. And that was all Rheagar needed. He could see how this would go, and he would not allow it.

All Jon felt was a rush of air, as his father vanished and then reappeared by his side. Before anyone could do a thing to stop him, they were both gone.

The last thing Jon saw was her widening eyes.


	3. the perishing of burnt places

" _The  
moon  
doesn't care about its  
own  
craters and bruises. Only  
we can regret  
the perishing of the  
burned place.  
Only we could call it a  
wound_."

— Margaret Atwood, 'A Fire Place'

Jon landed on his feet, sand giving softly beneath his boots, the sun beating hot against his back. Between aether and material form, all sensations were ephemeral, but even before he'd fully taken real form, Jon was pushing away from his father's hold. Surprise at being grabbed and taken the way he had was melting into anger so hot, it shocked him into his own body before Jon was ready for it.

"Why did you do that?"

But Jon's voice went unheard. Rheagar was already talking to Rhaenys.

"Did you speak to Doran?"

Rhaenys nodded. "It is done." But her frown did not ease. "He did not give readily, father. And neither did Arianne. The Red Viper is cross enough with you to challenge you for this."

The Red Viper. If their realm had ever had a god of war, it would be Oberyn Martell.

"I knew he would not be. Tell Aegon…"

"I have already woven the protections and spoken the blessings. He will hold them. Father…" Rhaenys reached out, laying her hand on her father's forearm the way she was used to do when she was looking to calm him. She looked up at him with her mother's eyes. "This is a mistake."

A hot wave of something Jon had felt before but never unleashed, rose from the depths of his soul all the way to the tips of his fingers.

"Both of you, stop!"

And it was his words and the scorching shockwave of his anger both that slammed forward into his father and sister. They put their arms up to protect their faces and brace their feet. Finally they looked at him.

"Why did you take me away?" Jon couldn't shake the anger of that kind of invasion. It burned so bright, and insistent. Jon did not give trust easily, he never had, and never before had that given trust been repaired with such carelessness.

He took a step forward and for the first time in his existence, Rhaenys took one back.

Jon couldn't possibly stop to think why.

"What is going on? What promise did you make? Who is that woman?"

Rheagar looked at his son and then stepped forward to him, taking his shoulders. They had been the same height for a long time, but now Jon felt the truth of it acutely.

"I am trying to protect you." Rheagar said, eyes wide and almost imploring. Imploring to calm.

Jon had none. He stepped back from his father's reach and stood his ground. Never before had his father's love felt like such a constriction.

"I do not want protection." He was so tired of it is was starting to feel like chains, not affection, or protection. "I want explanations. Now."

His father shared a look with his sister and she disappeared in a burst of bright light.

"That woman you saw is Sansa Stark, Lady of Winterfell and Warden of the Northern realm. Keeper of Winter and guardian of the lands beyond the Wall of All Souls." Rheagar took a deep breath. "She is daughter to Catelyn Tully and Eddard Stark, who was your mother's older brother."

Jon rubbed his thumb across the centre of his left palm, a nervous gesture from childhood he had not quite learned to drop.

"My cousin." It seemed unbelievable. But it had been very real. "What does she want?"

Jon had an inkling he knew what she wanted. But he wanted to hear it from his father's lips too.

"That is no matter. She won't have it."

Jon felt his lips curl up. It was not a smile. "Won't have me you mean?"

Rheagar walked away from him, pacing back and forth, his hand rubbing down his face as if that would take away the problem too.

"It was a long time ago. And a promise made under coercion is no promise."

"No one but you seems to think so." Jon reminded him. His father flinched.

"You disobeyed the Queen. Even if I was amendable to this… this running – and I am not - grandmother won't allow you to continue this forever." Jon took a step towards his father. "I will not hide from anyone."

"Do not make this about pride, Jon." His father warned. "And do not worry about your grandmother. I will make her see reason."

Jon thought his father sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. He did not even seem to hear Jon's words, and the intent behind them. Jon sighed. That was something his father did sometimes: not hear the things he did not wish to.

"What does she want with me? Sansa Stark." He said her name slowly, trying it out.

"To take you away." Rheagar scowled. "Lock you up in some barren wasteland and hold you there to a bereft life. A life beneath you."

Jon had never heard his father speak this way of his northern family, but there was something there, something beneath the anger that spoke of distrust and disdain too. And a notion that he had never entertained before formed in his head.

"Why do you hate them?"

The surprise in Rheagar's face was unexpected. "I do not."

"I don't believe you." Jon said, his voice suddenly much lower and smaller than before. "Did you hate my mother too?"

"I loved your mother. With all my heart, I loved her." Though sadness lingered in his eyes. "And I love you. I want you safe."

"Is that why I have never been allowed to see her people? Go to them. They would make me unsafe?"

"Yes!"

The notion that these people posed a danger to Jon, irritated him. The implied distrust, the shadow of which Jon had always felt but never dared name, hurt him. Inexplicably, illogically, he felt like he should defend them. And himself.

"She is my family!"

Anger could not drown out the betrayal in Rheagar's eyes. "I am your family. Aegon and Rhaenys are your family. She is your death!"

His father almost snarled those last words. But this time Jon was not to be cowered. He shook his head. Too much that had been concealed, that he'd been made to believe was part of 'the way of things', was no appearing to be different now. He did not know what to believe.

He felt foolish for never wondering of this before. For not searching harder. Not questioning more.

Rhaegar sensed the change in his son. He stepped forward and took him by the shoulders again, holding on tight, his eyes wide.

"Jon, I know you long for the north and your mother's family. I know. But you cannot let that blind you. Sansa Stark is dangerous." His father's long fingers tightened around Jon's arms, as if he wanted to will Jon into submitting to the truth of his words, by the sheer force of the belief he held for them. "I have seen who she is. I know her. She is the one that closed the North. She might have been a sweet child once and I mourn that child, but I do not trust the woman she has become. She is a faithless creature, a liar and a killer, Jon. She would murder us all if she could."

Jon felt his face fall. He remembered the cold touch climbing up his arms, the look in her eyes, sharp enough to slice a man's flesh from his bones though sheer will.

(And yet, he had not been afraid)

But before Jon could ask 'why', both he and his father felt the fluttering presence of Sir Gerold Hightower coming to their side.

The White Bull bowed to his prince. The fact that he was in full armour told Jon already all he needed to know.

"Forgive me my prince. The Queen demands your presence."

Rheagar's lips thinned. He turned to Jon.

"I will make you safe."

"Don't." Jon straightened, faced his father the way he might an equal. "Keep your word. Let me go. I will find my own way. I am not worth another war."

"There will not be another war, Jon."

"Then you should not have bound yourself to a promise you had no intention of keeping!" Jon snapped. "I don't want anyone dying for me."

He felt his father's hand coming around the back of his neck, pulling him close, forehead to forehead. His indigo eyes looked even darker from so close, and they were full to bursting with emotion.

"I would burn the whole world down for you, and not regret a thing."

The aching of his father's heart was so great that Jon could feel it. But for the first time, he did not put his father's wishes or his love, before his own. He did not know what he was going towards, but he knew he would decide his own fate once he got there, and not before.

"That is not what I want." Jon said then, calmer than he'd been ever since he'd heard wolves hauling an hour before. "If you ever cared for me, you will respect my will."

Rheagar's smile was small, his eyes sad enough to drown the world in it. "My darling boy. You truly are your mother's son."

Jon did not know what to say to that. He had not known his mother and was starting to realize he did not know his father that well either. Not even of himself could he be so sure. (but that he had always known)

The White Bull cleared his throat. "My prince. The Queen reminded me to counsel haste."

Rheagar stepped back. "I will speak to your grandmother… set this right." His father took his hand. "Promise me you'll stay here until I come for you, Jon."

Jon's face hardened. "That is unfair of you to ask."

"Yes. Yes, I know. Promise me."

Jon held his father's eyes, this time he let his feelings show. "As you wish."

The words lacked warmth, and Rheagar did not miss it. Even if the Queen decided in his favour, the relationship between father and son had broken and Jon could already trace the lines of that fracture.

The next moment Rheagar was gone and Jon was left alone with his thoughts.

For the first time since he had been brought here against his will - a breach of trust he still found himself annoyed over - he looked around to see where he was. He recognised the white beaches of southern Dorne, and the pale walls of a familiar castle, further in the distance.

The Water Gardens. Rhaenys and Aegon's sacred ground, ever since their mother had left this plane of existence for the other, some years past. Jon knew why he'd been brought here. Nobody, not even Queen Rhaella, had dominion here.

He walked towards the keep, intending to find some shade from the beating sun above his head. Every step of the way, he thought back to his father's words about the Lady. Sansa Stark. A liar and a killer, he'd called her. Jon did not know many men and women whose hands were clean of blood. By nature most of his family were warriors. But he'd never heard his father call any of them killers before.

He recalled the paleness of her cheeks, the defiant red of her hair and her frosty blue eyes. As blue as Winter Roses.

Perhaps she was as bad as his father believed. Jon supposed he would soon find out.

x

Sansa saw the intent solidifying behind those dark indigo eyes the moment Rheagar Targaryen made up his mind.

She could have stopped him… perhaps. She had never tested her ice against the flames of the Dragons, but she had faith in her powers. She might have frozen the Dragon Prince, if she'd tried. Delayed him, at least. Enough to stop him from taking Jon away. Enough to get to her cousin first.

If they had been in a field of battle, that is.

But they had not been. She had been in the middle of the Throne Room of the Red Keep, with hundreds of deities and minor nymphs and courtiers watching and tension running so high that Sansa could have snatched it out of the air. So she had gone over her odds, the fallout from each choice, and in the end she'd let the dragon prince leave with Jon Snow.

Jon Snow, her startled cousin, who had never been told a thing about… any of it. None of it. Sansa had understood that too, as soon as she'd seen his wide dark eyes. He probably thought she was a savage come from the underworld to rip him from his home.

He would not have been wrong.

He looked so much like her father it had made her feel… strange, for a moment. It had made her feel.

Arya would like him, Sansa thought detachedly, not reacting as the surprise (and delight) of the court finally found a voice. Their hushed whispers rose like a tide, though they did not dare raise their voice. Well – Arya would hate him at first, and probably fight him, but after that, she would probably like him. If Jon Snow could earn that, that is. Sansa ignored the rise of tittering voices (ignored her own deeper self and imagined it was ice and nothing more. Nothing less) and turned to the Queen.

She repeated her question. "Am I being denied, your grace?" as calm as the first time. Even calmer perhaps.

Her intent too, had solidified and so had her feelings. She would not be denied. They had no power over her here anymore, nor over what she had come to do. The words that had been spoken between her mother and father and the Dragon Prince long ago had their own power and that power ruled above them all. Some promises could not be broken.

If there was anyone who would understand the way of deeper oaths and their ancient binding power, it would be the Dragon Queen. One look in Rhaella's eyes and Sansa that there was no misunderstanding there.

"No Lady Stark. You will not be denied. The sacred vow will be upheld, for it is within the power of none of us here, to undo it."

Sansa felt it when the whole hall drew breath as one. She did not care. She tipped her chin to the Queen, who stood up.

"A private word, Lady Stark."

Sansa did not like wasting time and was weary of words spoken in private. They meant little, usually. She preferred words in the face of witnesses, when it came to the southern courts. But then again, there was not a man or woman in that room full of bodies, that Sansa trusted.

Rhaella walked down the steps of the dais. As she did, the silver princess Daenerys came forward too. Sansa curtsied.

"I have heard rumours of your beauty, princess." She said as she stepped forward, to take the hand that the princess had offered. "For once, the rumours were true."

Sansa kissed Daenerys' fine-boned hand and was not surprised at all when the future heir of the Iron Throne turned their hands around and kissed Sansa's in turn.

"The rumours I heard were of your power, Lady Stark." Daenerys said. Her eyes were a lighter, sweeter violet than her mothers, but just as sharp. "I think those are true as well."

Sansa and Daenerys fell into step by the Queen's sides, following her lead down the halls of the Red Keep.

"Shall your… pets follow us all the way?" Daenerys asked, sounding mildly curious, as she eyed Lady and Nymeria.

"Direwolves cannot be pets, your grace. And, with your permission, they shall. I'd rather they stay by my side than get into mischief elsewhere." Sansa added.

Rhaella's deep-set violet eyes met Sansa's only for a moment. "You do not trust your safety in my halls."

Sansa stared straight ahead. "I do not mean to offend, your grace."

"Speak truth, lady Stark. Your people have long been known to do so."

My father died for doing so, Sansa thought to herself. But it had been long since she had last been afraid of honesty.

"My ability to find safety in the south was sacrificed to survival long ago, your grace. That is something I cannot unlearn."

Daenerys stared at her with questioning eyes, but the Queen only sighed. "Indeed, none of us can."

The Queen stopped abruptly. Sansa stopped too, looked at those strange eyes framed by her strange hair. Such a foreignness to a sight that should be familiar.

"My son will not give in willingly. He loves that boy… into stubbornness."

"I do not wish to end this with a clash." Sansa said simply.

The Queen's smile was a cheerless, sharp thing. It reminded Sansa of how she had looked, long ago, in the banks of the Trident, with her black armour on and her silver hair in a tight coronet, eyes like burning embers. She was accepting now. But she has slain all her enemies that day.

"I am willing to believe you will, if you must."

Sansa did not respond. There was truth to that, but also a lie.

"I'd rather not." Sansa insisted. The Queen's son was not Sansa's responsibility and she was not about to make it so.

"Very well. You are free to do whatever you think you must do. I might even offer some help." The Queen said, a cheer reflected in her eyes that Sansa did not understand, but dreaded all the same. She wanted nobody's help, nor would she need it.

The Queen tilted her head, looked a bit over Sansa's shoulder. "Sir Gerold, do take a message to my son, please."

Behind her, the knight solidified right out of the wall and into presence. Sansa felt the awareness of him, armed and dangerous, behind her back. Nymeria rolled her shoulders and Lady piqued her ears. Sansa willed them both to stay calm.

"Where should I look for him, my Queen?"

Rhaella turned to her daughter, who had a fierce frown on ehr face. "Where should he look, my dear?"

Daenerys clenched her jaw. Instead of answering, she looked at Sansa.

"Why do you want him?" the princess asked, those little find-boned hands balling into fists. The Queen might not object but her daughter was combative and she might.

"I do not." Sansa said, simple and flat. "I am seeing my parents' will fulfilled, and the word given to my house honoured, because it is my duty to do so. Wanting has nothing to do with my actions."

The princess's face hardened, her eyes burned brighter. "So Jon means as little to you as nothing, then."

Sansa tipped her chin up just a fraction. "Forgive me princess, but that is not what I said."

"It is what you meant."

It would have been too easy to give in to anger. She was too well trained for it. "Jon Snow is my cousin."

Daenerys narrowed her pretty eyes. "He's a stranger to you."

"Those were your brothers terms, princess." Sansa said coldly. "I kept to them faithfully, as did all my family."

Daenerys held Sansa's eyes as she considered that cool answer. It did not seem to please her, though the Queen was looking at her daughter as the princess' reaction amused her.

"Start at the Watergardens." She finally said. The Queen raised a fine eyebrow.

"It's where I would hide something precious to me." The princess explained.

The Queen seemed unimpressed. "Oh?"

"Somewhere you cannot get to." Daenerys said then.

The Queen looked over at Sansa and this time her smile reached her eyes ever so slightly.

"Perhaps I cannot. But Lady Stark is not bound to the same promises I am."

The princess seemed reluctant. "Mother…"

"Summon Rhaenys and Aegon." The queen commanded. "And send Jaime Lannister to me, on your way out. Lady Stark, I hope we meet again soon."

Sansa bowed her head. It was a hope she did not share.

"Mama, please."

"I have spoken." Those were the Queen's words, and they were final.

Sansa turned to Lady, threaded her fingers on the thick fur of her direwolve's neck and looked deep into those warm gold eyes, and then into Nymeria's.

' _Find him for me_.' She urged. ' _Find him, but don't frighten him_.'

She could hear Arya's laugh ringing in her ears from a long distance.


	4. i want to

Sansa had never felt a sun like this. It burned her back, her arms. Made her feel as if her clothes would burst aflame for the sheer heat of her skin. The southernmost place she has been (been kept) was The Rock of the Lannisters, and then Storm's End. She'd never felt such heat in either.

She looked upon that place that men and women and all deities called the desert... and she found it similar to the open planes of the north. The only difference was the sand covering everything, whereas up north there was snow.

Sansa walked the length of the castle battlements. It was one of the most modest forts she'd ever seen, built with white stones almost at the foot of the sea. She could not deny the beauty of it though, nor the magnificent sights of its gardens in a land otherwise so barren.

It was as good a place to hide as any.

She reached her hand out as she walked, fingers brushing against the fresh-green leaves and soft-petaled flowers. This place was brighter than Arya's grass gardens had ever been. Tree branches hanged low, the blood oranges ripe and heavy on them. Sansa took one from them as she walked, turned it in her hands, feeling the smooth skin.

She did not know precisely where she was going. In her dreams, she could feel him as if he were there with her. But in her waking hours...

But then she turned the corner, and under the shade of tall trees, she found him. As if he'd been waiting.

x

He turned around the moment he felt a presence behind him – and there she was.

Her hair was bound this time, a simple braid over a round shoulder. It's tail almost brushed her waist. In her whispery grey dress and her arms bare, she looked so pale that the first thought Jon had was that the dornish sun would redden her skin and burn her.

She kept turning a blood orange in her hands as she came closer, one slow step after another. The sedated pace of her walk was in contrast with the alertness of her eyes. Jon had seen predators walk that way: deliberate stalking of one's prey. (he did not feel like prey. He felt like a man meeting his destiny)

She had long fingers, a single ring on her index finger, with a small red stone on it. No other jewellery, no other finery.

Áïdēs...

She cocked one eyebrow. "Is that what they call me down here now? 'Unseen one', as your father said? Hades."

Jon felt a cold shiver rum the length of his body. "They don't call you anything."

Nobody spoke her name. They spoke around it, as far as Jon knew. But then again, he'd never dealt in whispers. He didn't truly know what people called her.

"I find it funny how they try to make an insult out of the very thing they fear me for."

Jon watched her face carefully. There was no humour in that face.

"You find fear amusing?"

her mouth remained inexpressive, but her eyes glinted. "I find fear useful. Sometimes."

She was walking at the edge of the trees' shade, skirting it as one might skirt the threshold of a room one has not been invited in.

"How did you find me?" Jon didn't particularly care, but he could think of nothing else to say.

"Daenerys Stormborn told me where you might be hiding."

Had she? Nobody would be rushing in after him then.

"I'm not hiding."

The upturn curve of her lips, might have been called a smile, if one was generous.

"I know."

Her voice sounded different out here in the open, where she was not trying to command, or make herself heard over hundreds. She looked different too. Less like a vision; more like a woman.

Jon tried to take a breath, willing his heart to slow to a steadier beat.

She was lovely, his cousin. Jon was sure he'd never seen hair quite like hers before. It had looked strikingly red inside the Great hall, but under the sun it looked like true flame. Pale as a lily she was, and cold too, like the pale morning's light still clinging to night's chill. Beautiful. But not in the ways he was used to. She was not soft and sweet like Margery, mischievous like Rhaenys, or overwhelming the way Cersei was. She was not even like Danny - of a beauty that made one ache to look upon it, let alone reach for it.

Sansa Stark was beautiful the way sharp glinting things were: inviting of caution, not touch.

"Are you afraid of me, Jon Snow?"

Jon remembered the insistent press of her power in his grandmother's hall, the chill running up his arms.

Was he?

"Can't decide. Should I be?"

Her carefully opaque expression fell. She honestly seemed to consider it.

"No." A single syllable but it fell between like heavy as a vow. "No, you should not."

He hadn't thought a word spoken so softly could have come from such a woman.

She finally crossed that line she alone had been able to see, stepping into the shade and closer to him. She looked at him in the eye, barely having to look up - they were almost exactly the same height.

He'd been right before: the blue of her eyes was as clear as glass.

"You don't know a thing about me, do you?"

He didn't know how to read her tone. Whether it was amused or simply making an observation.

"I know some things."

She raised her eyebrows. Expectant.

"I know your name is Sansa Stark. And that you are my cousin." He said those things thought they felt small and silly. She was his family... and all he knew of her was her name.

But her lips twitched upwards. "I am."

"I know my father is convinced you'll be my death."

Whatever lightness had graced her face, was gone. One eloquent eyebrow poignantly rose up to question his statement. One could catch ones flesh like from a hook, at the corner of that smile gracing her lips.

"Your father has a flair for the dramatic. As do you, it seems."

"Is there any truth to it?"

"So you are afraid, then?" She stepped closer still, less than a foot between them now. "Do you think I'm here to steal your soul and cast it from the top of the Wall of Souls, Jon Snow?"

He did not answer her. His answer was in his eyes. When she rolled her own at him, the action stuck him as achingly familiar. He couldn't not have imagined a more grounding petulance.

Rhaenys and Danny rolled their eyes at him exactly like that all the time.

"I will be your death as much as Rheagar was Lyanna's." She fixed those eyes on him then, and they seemed to know more than he was comfortable with. "Or have you been told that you were your mother's death? Which story have you been told?"

Unkind words. Perhaps she was as unkind as other's before her.

"Either." Jon said flatly. "All of them. Does it matter?"

"It does. It's always good to know which lies you're being told."

"Words are not lies just because I don't like them."

She looked at him a long moment, and then shook her head. Her eyes were almost indulged. Almost pained. But then she blinked and it was gone.

"Words are likes when liars speak them. And there are many skilled liars in Queen's Landing." But then she looked away and dismissed her own words with a flick of her hand. "What else do you know, tell me."

This was starting to feel like a game, one Jon did not know how to play, because he did not have the rules. But he answered her anyway. There was nothing else he could do. No other way to judge what she wanted.

"I know that you're the first northerner to come south since the end of the Rebellion."

Even from those few feet away that separated them, Jon could see that the tilt of her not-smile was amused. At him, this time.

"The first to step into court, yes. But others have crossed the Neck before me."

Jon's face fell he tried very hard not to clench his jaw in front of her, not to show his irritation. "I've never met any."

"No, you wouldn't have. Is why I'm here among the things you know, Jon Snow?"

Jon sighed. He felt the tension that had been tightening his shoulders release with that breath.

"I know you're here for me."

She looked at the orange in her hands, dug her nails into the soft skin and opened it, splitting it down the middle. The red juice of the fruit looked almost like blood against her pale fingers.

She offered half of it to him. Jon took it, and offered her an embroidered square of cloth for her hands. Such an absurd gesture between two strangers in their situation. But manners were ingrained deep in him, and when Sansa stark took the kerchief with a polite thank you, he understood that they were dug just as deep in her.

"I would like to explain it, but it is a long tale and we don't have much time."

Jon watched her pick apart the fruit, one small sliver at a time. "It's all the same to me. I'd rather we got this over with."

She pinched her lips. "That's not how things are done."

"I don't much care for how things are done." Jon told her, as freely as he'd ever told anyone.

Sansa Stark raised her chin, her eyes narrowing on him, but her lips giving in to amusement.

"You remind me of my sister." She said then. He couldn't read her tone at all.

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Jon asked, eyeing a stray curl that the soft sea breeze displace from behind her ear, making it brush against her cheek.

She hummed. "Can't decide." But this time her smile did reach her eyes.

The fact that Jon wanted to smile back was inexplicable. Perhaps it was because from this close, she looked even younger than he did.

Age was a strange thing with the likes of their kind. Jon had been looking like a man for longer than his brother Aegon had, despite when they had been born. And lady Stark might be older in this world than Jon was, but she looked younger than Danny.

She took a bite of the blood orange, so daintily her lips barely stained.

Lady Stark. They obviously did not call her that just because her position demanded it. Jon knew what elegance of manner was – he'd been raised around princesses, who had learned it from a Queen. But the only one who seemed to manage the stuffiness of courtly manners without the slightest hint of falsehood or pretence had only ever been Rhaenys.

And now Sansa Stark.

"Would you like to meet her?" She asked him suddenly, and Jon had to look away from her mouth, his collar feeling too tight and his neck too hot.

"Meet who?"

"My sister. My brothers." Her face softened, transformed. "They all want to meet you."

Jon didn't like being resentful. He didn't like the who it made him into, but he couldn't always resist it either. "They why haven't they?"

"We couldn't." If that was sadness in her voice or he was merely imagining it, Jon didn't know. He could not tell. "But I'm here now. And I've come to take you home."

Jon frowned, but his heart already knew what she was talking about and kicked up its pace.

"Home?"

"Winterfell." The word had a life of its own between them. It lived in her eyes and in the beat of his heart that seemed to change rhythm as if it recognised a place he'd never been in. "Would you like to come with me?"

He would. And he would not. It was complicated, and Jon confused.

But it didn't matter, because before he opened his mouth to respond, Sansa Stark turned her head sharply to the left, a fierce frown on her face.

"Did you hear that?"

A moment later a whizzing sound split the air, and Jon moved without thought. He snatched the small, golden arrow out of the air right before it embed itself into Lady Stark's shoulder. But he was too slow: Jon watched in horror as the sharp tip of Jamie Lannister's golden weapon pierced her skin... and cracked it,

as if it were ice.

"Lady Stark? Are you alright?" She did not answer him. Only looked from her wound to his hand, wrapped tight around the shaft of the arrow... to his eyes. There was surprise on her face, and the barest hint of shock. Jon felt like he should touch her, but didn't dare.

He watched as she cracks of her skin closed. She did not bleed.

When Sansa Stark looked up from her wound and onto the face of the Lannister that caused it, the surprise was gone. Anger had taken its place.

"Jamie Lannister. You are the Queen's idea of help?"

Jamie Lannister smirked. "That's a smart armour you've managed to create. The little girl I knew wouldn't have thought of that."

"The little girl you knew was easier prey." She rebutted as she turned to fully face him.

Jamie stared into the distance. "You better run now. You won't be alone with him much longer."

Sansa Stark did not seem to hear him.

"Are you not going to ask me about your son?" She said then. Jon looked over at her. The look on her face was so different from before she might have been another woman. But for the first time in what must have been aeons, there was no cocksure grin on Jamie Lannister's face.

"Everyone wants to ask me about their sons. Their daughters. Does Cersei still mourn him?"

She sounded conversational, but her words were cruel.

"Careful, Lady." Jamie warned. Jon felt his hand reaching for his sword. He didn't want to duel Jamie Lannister but he... he was very surprised to realize that he would if he had to.

"I remember everything about the day I passed judgment on his soul." She went on, stepping towards the golden knight.

Jamie Lannister looked at her like he wanted her to die as much as he wanted his next breath. It did not stop her.

"The one soul I wanted to thrown into the Pits myself." She said softly. Her smile twisted her face into cruelty. The frost that came from beneath her dress, her very skin, dried and killed all life around it. "He begged me. Then he threaded me. And cursed me. He cried for his mother as I threw him into the eternal fires, where he will roast until the days of existence are done."

Jamie Lannister sneered. It looked ugly on him. "You are as cruel, Áïdēs."

She tipped her chin up, her smile carved on her face as if by a knife. "I am fair."

Jamie Lannister moved his hand towards his dagger, and already Jon was going for his, but a hand stopped him. He looked up to see Sansa Stark standing by his side, just as Jamie Lannister's golden knife pierced through the air, the lady Stark in front of him nothing but a mirage.

But all this Jon saw as if in a dream. She pulled him with her, from within, her will calling to his own, asking him to follow and pushing for obedience at the same time. Jon gave in, and the next thing he knew, the world spun fast enough to blur, and the earth seemed to swallow them both.

When next he blinked his eyes open, he her blue eyes close to his face, much too close, before Sansa Stark pulled herself away. His head was still spinning, but he saw grey walls in a courtyard of white stone, beneath a pale sky. Heard voices he did not know, one shouting above all the others. A girl, a woman, in riding clothes, black hair, grey yes. Familiar and not, and with a fierce frown on her face at first and who then burst out laughing as she understood what she was seeing.

She stalked towards them with that big grin, and to Jon she looked half-mad. His hand went to his sword. She ignored him completely, her wicked amusement and seeming incredulity reserved for Lady Stark.

"You stole him?" she laughed again. "I can't believe it! Rickon!"

Lady Stark groaned. Jon turned to her but only saw her pinching the bridge of her nose. He wanted to ask her if she was alright, but then he remembered the words she'd spoken to Jamie Lannister.

"Arya, not so loudly." The lady said, sounding about as exhausted as Jon felt. It was all he could do not to sway on his feet. "I travelled a long way, in too short a time. How do you feel, Jon?"

Jon felt dizzy, and his eyes were blurred. He could barely stand so when a hand gently urged him to sit, he obliged.

"Move as little as possible for a few moments." It was her voice. Jon recognised it. Sansa Stark's voice. "It will pass. Would you like some water?"

But Jon did not have the chance to get one word in edgewise.

"What's the racket?"

Another laugh. "She stole him."

A snort. "She did not! I don't believe you."

"Come and see then!"

"Enough, both of you." This time Sansa Stark was giving an order.

"Wait till Robb hears." The other girl teased. The boy laughed. Lady Stark sighed. Jon reached out blindly. It was luck – and awareness of her by his side – that had his hand wrapping around her narrow wrist.

"Where are we?" he barely recognised his own voice. But he did recognise her face.

"We are in the north, Jon Snow." Sansa Stark told him, her eyes calm.

She looked so different from the creature that had taunted Jamie Lannister's pain. He couldn't understand how two beings so different could meet into the same body.

She smiled at him, realer than any other smile before it.

"Welcome to Winterfell."


End file.
